The Way That You Talk to You

If someone talked to you

The way that you do to you

I’d put their teeth through

Love yourself

Without exception, when I hear these lyrics (Idles, Television) I am reminded of me. The way that I talk to me. The way that I view my body, it’s failures and its shortcomings. The fact that I don’t look quite how I’d like to when I wear skinny jeans. My hair has this weird in between thing where it’s not straight but it’s not curly and it requires attention every single day. My eyes are too small, my legs are too fat and my hips are too wide. I can’t run fast, I can’t dance and I have never been able to do a cartwheel. But if someone was to take all of those things about you, or about someone else I cared about and list them like this I would be furious! LOVE YOURSELF! Take those ‘flaws’ and either accept them as part of who you are or get out there and change them.

Do something. Care enough about yourself to do something. The way that you talk to you matters.

I’m working on this. All of this. There are things that I like about myself but I won’t list them here. They are things in the list above that I am working on and intend to
improve upon (even if that just means improving my attitude towards them) as part of this whole loving myself thing. It’s time. It’s time to celebrate what my body CAN do, and use that knowledge to propel myself to achieve more. I mean, I carried four babies, brought them into the world, breastfed them all. My body has been sliced open on the operating table four times, once under horrific circumstances. My body has been battered, bruised and broken. Yet, I am here. And I am working on the way that I talk to me.

Part of this process has been joining a gym, three years ago now. Making pledge to myself to go, almost every single day. To learn. To read about the amazing things the human body can do. To care about the foods I eat and the products I use. To recognise the things that can improve my emotional wellbeing. To propel myself into a better place.

I’m now over half way through week two of Project Comeback, and finding that having this as a focus is just what I needed after a tough few months emotionally. Week zero was all about finding a baseline, understanding my current habits and finding the areas that need work. As I predicted, sleep is a huge one for me. Being tired, or even sleep deprived is a massive trigger for me and one of the main contributors to a decline in mental health. It can be a vicious cycle where I don’t sleep, so I start the day on a negative foot and I struggle to dig myself from the quicksand of my mind. My anxiety increases, the way that I talk to me changes, small things are more hurtful and more impactful. It can be one tiny, seemingly unimportant, thing that can set me off into insomnia. Recently this was a misunderstood attack I received out of the blue that led me down a spiral, but I don’t really blame that person. It’s up to me how I respond and how I deal with situations- and being on top of my emotional game has so much to do with that. If I eat well, I sleep well. If I sleep well, I think well and move well. It’s all intertwined and so vital for me to nourish each and every aspect. It’s not easy, but being able to step away and move on from sources of anxiety and disruption is one of my main goals for 2019.

So the information gained in week zero of Project Comeback has informed week one. I’ve logged workouts, movement sessions, steps taken, calories consumed, sleep achieved (plus the quality of that sleep), and stress levels too. And mid-way through week two I can see that small changes have improved my lacking sleep scores. This is the one area that I still need to work so hard on- and the one that has the biggest impact for me.

This won’t be a magical cure but it’s a really good place to start. Since I have the gym thing and the food thing pretty much sorted, the sleep and stress are my main focuses for this project. I’m taking small steps, I’m recording them as I go and I am seeing the changes evolve. I am working hard. I am changing the way that I talk to me, and this week that is my celebration.

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1 Comment

emma

January 28, 2019 / 10:04 pm

I love this. I have made 2019 the year of changing the way I talk to myself! I’ve also started going to the gym this year, and focused on telling myself that my body is strong and capable instead of that I can’t do it, I’m too out of shape, etc, has changed the way I view myself. It also turns out that if I tell myself I’m strong when I’m working out, I can exercise for longer and it is in turn making me stronger. The way you talk to yourself really does make a difference.